Most of Your Constituents Could Get an “F” in Reading

I’ll admit this is a provocative title, but a more “disruptive” one would be, “Who Reads Your School’s Newsletter?” The answer to that question may be, “Not as many people as you think.”

When new articles are published or previous ones are republished with updates on the SchoolAdvancement.com Web site, subscribers can get an email with a “teaser” portion of the article, and a “continue reading” link. If, after the first few lines, readers are interested in reading more, they can then visit the link and continue with the article. Therefore, if you’re sending your school’s constituents an eNewsletter, article previews should be formatted in the same manner, with the complete articles posted to a news section of your school’s Web site.

Why?

1) By offering a link to the complete article, you can track which articles generate the most interest from your school’s constituent groups;

2) If you send someone a publication with a lot of text, chances are it will never be read. Today’s market looks a lots of words and thinks, “I don’t have time for this;” and

2) eNewsletters received by email will be deleted. By posting the articles to your Web site, they’re always searchable there.

But what about those people who want a paper newsletter? To be blunt, especially today, they’re a drain on your valuable time and resources. Back in the days of the newspaper, complete articles had to be written, formatted for the size of the newspaper, and were more than likely continued on another page. Newsletters were just smaller versions of newspapers. If there were many important items to be shared, but only room for a few, editing was a necessity – to the point that some articles may have had to be omitted.

However, if you still want to provide a paper accommodation for these folks, you could take a cue from a non-profit organization I used to work with. Their articles would be posted to the organization’s Web site, the eNewsletter created and sent to the email subscribers, and then the text of the articles would be copied and pasted into a Word document which would only be provided to the family if they requested it AND were willing to pay for a “subscription” to it. Then it could be mailed to the family requesting a paper document.

But why would your constituents get an “F” in reading today? If you’re still publishing “complete article” newsletters, it’s not that your readers are receiving a letter grade in comprehension. It’s how they’re reading your articles – in the shape of an “F.” The following comes from David M. Mastovich, MBA, President of MASSolutions, an integrated marketing firm focused on improving the bottom line for clients through creative selling, messaging and PR solutions. It’s a segment from his publication titled, “Light Reading,” published February 21, 2014:

How do we read today?

We don’t.

Even though you might have found the question interesting, a third of you are already moving on to something else.

Whether reading (or should I say skimming?) online or print, we rarely finish a story or article. And we don’t move smoothly from left to right as we follow the words across the page.

Eye tracking research from web guru Jakob Nielsen shows that we sweep our eyes across the page in a pattern that is shaped like an F, starting in the upper left corner. We tend to take two horizontal swipes across the page, then swipe vertically down the left.

Uh oh. We are now past the point (around 100 words) where more than half the original readers are gone. Wish you were here.

Our desire is not that others might be relieved while you are hard pressed, but that there may be equality. At the present time, your plenty will supply what they need, so that in turn their plenty will supply what you need. Then there will be equality, as it is written: 'He who gathered much did not have too much, and he who gathered little did not have too little.'2 Corinthians 8:13-15

Energy and persistence will conquer all things.Benjamin Franklin

It is time to recover our nerve and promote our schools for the 21st century. The current hospice mentality—watching our schools slowly die—must give way to a renewed confidence.Timothy Cardinal Dolan, Archbishop of NY (From 'The Catholic Schools We Need', America Magazine, 9.13.2010. Source: http://americamagazine.org/issue/747/article/catholic-schools-we-need)

Don't copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God's will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.Romans 12:2

It is important for States to guarantee 'the Church the freedom to establish and administer Catholic schools, affording parents the opportunity to choose a means of education that fosters the Christian formation of their children. Indeed, a solid education that nourishes all the dimensions of the human person, including the religious and spiritual, is in the interest of both Church and State. In this way, young people can acquire habits that will enable them to embrace their civic duties as they enter adulthood.Benedict XVI (2007)

Nothing is so commonplace as to wish to be remarkable.Oliver Wendell Holmes

People need to be reminded more often than they need to be instructed.Samuel Johnson